


Maleficent, Consent and Feminism

by Saucery



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Acceptance, Analysis, Canon - Movie, Canon Compliant, Coming of Age, Commentary, Consent Issues, Courage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Essays, F/F, F/M, Feminist Themes, Freedom, Happy Ending, Heroism, Heteronormativity, LGBTQ Themes, Meta, Metaphors, Misogyny, Movie Spoilers, Psychoanalysis, Queer Themes, Rape Culture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovery, Rescue, Romance, Self-Defense, Spoilers, Strong Female Characters, Trauma, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:11:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1781935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An essay on some of <i>Maleficent</i>'s groundbreaking themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maleficent, Consent and Feminism

* * *

 

The importance of consent is emphasized throughout  _Maleficent_. When Maleficent is betrayed by Stefan, it is because he drugs her and steals her wings from her without her consent. There are definite parallels with rape in how that scene is depicted.

When Maleficent says “my wings were stolen from me,” and spends decades trying to cope with that pain, there are, again, very obvious parallels drawn between Maleficent’s agony and the difficulties of coping with sexual assault. What Stefan does to Maleficent is almost certainly a metaphor for rape.

Significantly, Maleficent herself  _does not touch Aurora_  when Aurora says, “Don’t touch me.” Stefan is the true villain, here, because he does not care about consent. Maleficent is redeemable—and ultimately a hero—because she  _does_. Even after she rescues Aurora, and Aurora asks whether they’re returning to the Moors (the land of the fairies), Maleficent says that the choice is Aurora’s. She doesn’t simply carry Aurora away, as though Aurora were a possession.

In contrast, the first thing Stefan, Aurora’s father, does to Aurora upon her return is to lock her away without her consent. He might claim that he is protecting his daughter, but this concept of stealing a woman’s freedom from her  _for her own good_  is so disgustingly patriarchal that I can only imagine it is a deliberate choice on the behalf of the creators of  _Maleficent_. Stefan stole Maleficent’s wings, too—her ability to fly—and that was also the theft of a woman’s freedom. Only that time, he didn’t even bother pretending it was for her own good; it was simply for his greed.

Amazingly and wonderfully, the movie shows that it is when women  _unite_  against their oppression that they are liberated. Maleficent frees Aurora from captivity, and Aurora restores Maleficent’s wings. Together, they  _free each other_. And that is stunning. I’m not sure I’ve seen that in any Disney movie, ever. Until now.

Typically, it is a male that hurts a woman and another male (or, sometimes, even the  _same_  male) that frees her. Not so in  _Maleficent_. The women save each other, thank you very much. They don’t need a man to do it for them, and they  _certainly_  don’t need that man to declare himself a hero only in order to claim them and control them, the way the villain had been doing all along.

It’s the Nice Guy syndrome, as we are all aware of; the prince is rewarded for his “chivalry” by “getting” the princess. Good behavior is seen as a reward system for men, in most fairy tales and modern retellings. They get sex, affection and respect in exchange for not being the bad guy. The princess  _has_  to love the prince that rescues her. The woman  _has_  to marry the man that “wins” the right to marry her, as if she were a prize. It’s ridiculous, right?

But Maleficent rescues Aurora and never claims her in that way; she gives Aurora the choice of where she’d like to live and how she’d like to live. In the end, Maleficent crowns Aurora queen,  _empowering her instead of disempowering her_. While a male romantic interest would have neatly tied Aurora up in the box of “submissive wife,” Maleficent does the exact opposite—she gives Aurora  _more_  power instead of less. She places Aurora higher than herself, instead of using her own “good behavior” in rescuing Aurora as an excuse to own Aurora or control her.

The men in  _Maleficent_  are portrayed as feeling that women owe them something—which is an exceedingly accurate portrayal, I’m afraid—while the women are portrayed as surviving despite the evils done unto them, and ultimately triumphing  _by uniting_  against those evils.

The movie’s commentary on the patriarchy doesn’t end there. The former king (Stefan’s predecessor), attacked the Moors for no other reason than his own greed, and the greed of his fellow men. There were riches to be found in the Moors, and the king wanted them. But what of the innocent beings living in the Moors? Why, they’d have to be slaughtered, of course. Collateral damage. Indeed, how could those creatures even be innocent? They looked different, after all. Thus, they must be monsters deserving of erasure. This is  _also_  a commentary on colonialism and racism—especially when the king mocks Maleficent for being an “elf,” as though it is a racial slur intended to demean her—but I’ll keep in-depth analysis of that angle for another day. For now, I want to focus on the misogyny of the king.

The king attacks the Moors  _on his own_ , and is then enraged that Maleficent resists him. On his death bed, he demands that he be avenged, that someone kill Maleficent for him. It’s laughable because since when is  _he_  the one who needs to be avenged? Was he not the one who declared war? He was the aggressor, but he somehow makes it  _Maleficent’s fault that she did not submit to his aggression_. He paints Maleficent as the villain for not being submissive, for not allowing herself and her lands (i.e. her body) to be violated. A woman who is not submissive is a threat, a villain, a danger to civilized society.

This is a classic example of the greedy, materialistic, domineering man plundering the earth  _and_  women, treating women as land that must be colonized and possessed. According to this worldview, women are objects that need to be the property of a man. If they are  _not_  the property of a man, there is something unnatural about it. If they are not the property of a man, they cannot be trusted. Only a conquered woman is an acceptable woman.

Maleficent kicks that worldview in the balls. She refuses to bow to masculine rule, fights every step of the way, goes to battle with the men and then WINS THE GODDAMN BATTLE. She wins the battle against Stefan’s predecessor, and against Stefan, as well. She utterly destroys Stefan and his fear-driven, misogynistic way of governance. She unseats him from power and ensures that a woman (Aurora) occupies the throne. The undeserving man is thrown out and a worthy woman is put in charge. A woman who understands the importance of respect and compassion, and does not view other lands and people as things. A woman who understands the importance of  _consent_.

 _Maleficent_  explores the fact that most men treat women like objects and then blame them when they resist, as though it is the women’s fault that they’re treated like objects. Even after stealing Maleficent’s wings—treating  _her body_  like an object that he could carve up for his own profit—Stefan expected Maleficent to remain meek and tame and stay away, because he felt that women were too weak to seek vengeance or demand justice. He felt he could abuse them with impunity,  _because that was the natural order of things_. Well, Maleficent sure showed him, huh? She crushed him in combat, and showed him how powerless he really was, despite all the power he thought he had accumulated. It was power built on injustice, and Maleficent demonstrated that such power could never last.

In the end, Stefan is shocked when  _his own daughter_  smiles at Maleficent across a raging battle, and sides with Maleficent against him. If he wonders why Aurora does that, she does it because it’s the correct thing to do, because Maleficent and Aurora can right his wrongs and free themselves from tyranny.

Maleficent and Aurora are astonishing in the sense that their alliance (their  _love_ , take that, heteronormativity) is the first such alliance that I have ever seen in a Disney movie. Instead of women being pitted against one another—with the token villainess making life difficult for the heroine—women are instead shown uniting in  _Maleficent_ , and, through that unity, overcoming an unfair and unjust patriarchy. The princess is crowned a queen without having to marry a king or a prince, and the villainess is revealed as her staunchest ally. Meanwhile, the men that hurt them and abused them are vanquished.

Now  _this_  is a happy ending I can get behind—a happy ending that does not depend on the subjugation, disempowerment or perceived weakness of a woman.

Ahoy, matey! Let me on board this ship!

 

* * *

**fin.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Want more meta? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
